The Aging Population Trend

The trend towards a growing older population that is living longer is already creating high demand in products and services tailored to this demographic. Home healthcare and nursing homes are just two areas to benefit.

We see healthcare as a great field for many years to come. Insurance companies, politicians and trial lawyers will unfortunately continue their negative impact on this critical field for some time. None the less, even with breakthrough medical technologies, people will continue to need healthcare workers.

One threat however is if the politicians reduce the licensing requirements for medical professionals, allowing less educated, possibly poorly trained people into this field. Healthcare needs to be high quality.

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The Internet Trend

By linking everyone's home directly to manufacturers and service providers the entire infrastructure and sales channel has been changing. Anyone who makes his or her living as a middleman had better change careers or become expert at adding unique value.

The Vanishing Middleman

The middleman in many business transactions will gradually disappear largely as a result of technology and competition. With increased competition, neither the manufacturer nor the customer will be willing to pay for the added cost of the middleman unless he adds substantial value.

Who are the middlemen? Middlemen are found between the manufacturer and the end customer. Usually this is sales people and retailers. For instance, if you can purchase your car over the Internet, why go through a car salesman. If you can purchase airplane tickets over the Internet, directly from the airline, why use a travel agent.

If you must be a middleman be sure you know how to add value and how to differentiate yourself from the competition.

Cocooning

The trend towards cocooning was first identified by Faith Popcorn in her book entitled "The Popcorn Effect" (see the reading list on our web site) or visit her site for some real insight into the trends affecting consumers today. http://www.faithpopcorn.com

Cocooning describes a phenomenon where people will want to stay inside the safety, security and comfort of their homes, their cars, their offices, and their gated communities. People are afraid to go out. This is partially due to mass media's continued effort to frighten the public by showing a constant image of danger.

Thus, people will do more from their homes. They will spend more money to make their homes comfortable and complete. Home entertainment systems, home remodeling will abound.

Energy Shortages

Expect energy prices to rise, especially in the United States. This will change the infrastructure and underlying economy in many ways. With rising energy prices, all materials will cost more to produce. Recycling will be performed for economic reasons more than environmental reasons.

Expect to see more products that save energy such as solid state electronic lighting and more efficient, but more complicated home appliances.

Alternative forms of energy and energy storage will spawn new industries. Home size fuel cells will become available. Photovoltaic cells may finally become financially attractive.

Fighting over oil reserves will continue until breakthroughs in energy take place.

Increased Leisure Time, Sorry No

Increased leisure time has been reported as a trend for a long, long time. We have just never seen it materialize.

Statistics show that people today are working longer hours than their parents. Thus less leisure time.

Although most people don't have more leisure time they now know that and thus value their free time more highly than ever before. This is a great opportunity to

A More Connected Teen and Sub Teen Generation

Children who are now just barely old enough to use a mouse are now going on-line. Instead of watching TV these kids are playing games, getting educated and watching advertisements on the Net.

In growing up with the internet, they will be more comfortable and more adept with it than any prior generation. Statistics are showing that most students now use the internet as their sole source of research and help when doing homework and term papers. What does this say for going to the library?

The protective barrier of the home now has a crack in it where on-line marketers push their wares to the youngest generation.

Meals on Demand

We are still surprised that no one has yet to come up with a good solution to this universal problem. With most mothers working full time jobs, or running their own businesses, who has time to prepare quality meals for the family. The wealthy may have maids, cooks and nanny's, but what about the other 98% of the population. You can't use pizza delivery every night of the week.

What we need is an Amazon.com for meals on demand. Delivery within one hour. Big cities have various forms of take out and delivery, but what about the suburbs. This will surely create jobs for delivery people as well as cooks and chefs.

Top Jobs for the Future

Based on macro trends seen today, the careers listed below should be in relatively high demand throughout the next 10 years.

Almost all jobs, no matter how secure, will experience ups and downs due to the economy and unexpected changes in technology. Thus there is no guarantee.

The key to survival and winning in the career game is to be the best at what you do. Even in tough times, the people who have a reputation for being the best in their field will do better than most.

The key to being the best in your field is to do the type of work that you are truly passionate about. Click here to take the Career Test, that will help you discover what it is you can be the best at.